By their own doing
by BBCRules95
Summary: The Avengers make a mistake, with tragic consequences. Tony is accused of supporting a terrorist organization; trust is destroyed, friendships are broken and the world is at risk. Someone needs to pick up the pieces and it's not the person anyone expects. Clearly, I suck at summaries, but give it a go! Whumpy team!fic, hopefully with lots of action and some Pepperony.
1. Chapter 1

**Hey. Hi. Hello.**

**This is just a prologue for a story that has been following me for AGES, but that I've never had the time to type. Depression is back, so to avoid jumping off a building, I need to overwhump Tony and the rest of the Avengers. As a result this happened.**

This was never supposed to happen. Not to the people they promised to protect. Not to their friends and loved ones. It was not even supposed to happen to any of them, the Avengers, and especially not those who made it clear enough that they were not soldiers and didn't want to go into other people's battles.

But here they were. In an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of NewYork, staring at a motionless form of Tony Stark, blindfolded and chained to the wall opposite the entrance. The moment they entered the room they had to fight hard to keep their calm. The stench of vomit, urine and the unmistakable, metalic odour of blood were overwhelming. By the time Steve, Natasha and Bruce reached the body hanging limply in the corner of the room, Clint's stomach was emptying itself of its contents outside. Natasha kept her hand on the handle of the gun tucked into her belt, because the colour of Banner's skin was turning danerously green, and they were in enough trouble already.

Steve was faring no better himself. The body kneeling on the ground was not moving. Why the hell was it _not moving_? It should be. No one was asking Stark to jump around as his usual self or perform acrobatic tricks. All they needed was a steady rise and fall of his chest indicating breathing, but even this was absent. Steve needed to punch something. No, he needed to punch the people who did this.

That was until the moment he realised that this was all their doing. _They _led to this. _They _made their teammate suffer. _They_…oh God, please no…did they…did _they_ kill him?

Natasha was trying to calm Banner down, to talk reason into him, so it was up to Steve to free Stark's hands from their bindings and check for pulse. The Captain was on his knees now, in a pudle of blood and some other _things _that he wasn't sure he wanted to identify. As he caught the billionaire's wrist in his hand, he was quietly hoping to be welcomed by a cheeky remark accompanied by Stark's trademark grin. All he got was a flinch and a hardly audible groan of protest, as the genius was turned onto his back.

Steve could swear that his heart just broke in half. This was not supposed to happen. Not to a civilian. Not to Tony. And especially not _by their own doing_.

**The first proper chapter should be up very soon, and I hope to hear from you by then ;) I have to say that I'm quite excited about this!**

**Please REVIEW if you want more. Constructive criticism is always more than welcome and reviews keep me going. :DDD**


	2. Chapter 2

**Thank you for the favs, follows and especially the reviews. **

**There is not really much going on in here. Just to explain, the Prologue was just a taster of where I'm planning to take the story. This is where the actual storyline starts, so 'Chapter 1' can be ignored at the moment. I hope I didn't confuse you ;)**

**In response to what Inuyuke said about Bruce and Clint: yup, I totally see your point and I will keep it in mind when writing later chapters. Plus I am hoping that my choice will make more sense in the context of the situation ;) **

**There is not much really happening here, but in the next chapter we'll have a little tuning point, so stay tuned! **

**I hope you like it. Enjoy…**

Natasha smiled despite herself, as she found Steve and Tony lingering on the sofa, playing Mario Bros on a console that Tony developed and laughing hysterically at something. It had been difficult to get these two to function side by side at first, but once Steve decided that flying through a wormhole into a different dimension to save Manhattan was not actually selfish, and Tony stopped bullying him about confusing Wi-Fi with radio waves, they became almost inseparable.

'Do you want to tell me what is so funny?' Natasha asked as she poured herself a glass of water. They just looked at her and started laughing again. She rewarded them with raised eyebrows and a questioning smirk, but decided to leave the question as it was.

The moment 'Game Over' appeared on the screen, Tony took off like a bullet and started heading in the direction of his workshop. Steve had no idea what just happened. True, the billionaire lost with a man who still had difficulties with turning on the console by himself, but he certainly wouldn't throw a tantrum just because of this, would he?

'Is he alright?' Natasha asked, as Steve was glued to his spot on the sofa, trying to figure out the reason for Tony's behaviour. He shook his head, in reply, wishing he could know the answer.

'Don't you think he's been acting a bit weird lately? Disappearing for days on end, running away like this? I don't think he's even called Pepper since she left for Hong Kong last week..' Steve was hoping that maybe the master spy would be able to notice some clues that he was not observant enough to see.

'Well, I wouldn't worry about disappearing in the workshop, he tends to do that. But Pepper…?' Natasha looked very thoughtful and then froze in her tracks on her way to the fridge. Steve looked at her questioningly, indicating that she should continue her train of thought.

'I'm not suggesting anything, but…the last time he tried to distance himself from Pepper was when he almost died of palladium poisoning,' she spat the words out at a speed of a machine gun, trying to avoid Steve's gaze. The moment she raised her eyes, the soldier looked as if somebody had just slapped him across the face. Hurt was painted all over his features. Natasha couldn't help but feel sorry for him. He missed the honesty and camaraderie he experienced back in his army times, but was still unlikely to find in a group made up of spies and mentally unstable scientists.

'Wouldn't he…tell us, if something was wrong?' Natasha couldn't help, but smile warmly at the almost childish trust he displayed. Especially towards the man that he perceived as something lesser than a cockroach not so long ago.

'No. Contrary to popular belief, the last time he kept quiet not to worry Pepper. He probably wouldn't want to bother us either.' The spy was right to suspect, that this piece of information would be a novelty for Steve. Stark and concern for others in one sentence? Steve still had some difficulty believing that it wasn't an oxymoron.

'I'll talk to him.' Steve took off without further due and followed in the footsteps of the genius.

'I would sit this one out if I were you Cap,' Natasha murmured, knowing that her words would go unnoticed. She rolled her eyes and murmured, 'guys'.

XXXXXXX

It wasn't uncommon for Steve to find Tony hunched over a project displayed on his desk, or lying buried under a car, tinkering with it. Never before had he found Tony on a couch, curled up in a ball, clutching his tablet hard in his hand. To Steve's surprise, Tony didn't even attempt to chase him out of the workshop. The soldier suspected that his friend simply didn't even notice his entrance.

'Tony?' Steve asked quietly . Tony's back was to him, and knowing how much he tended to wear himself out, Steve didn't want to wake him. For some reason, which was yet to be revealed to Steve, Tony jerked so hard when he heard his name, that he managed to roll off the sofa and land himself on the floor. He looked something like a deer in the headlights, trying to conceal the tablet from Steve's eyes and hid his face in his hands.

'Tony…? Are you…are you okay? You look a bit like…'

'What? Me? No, of course not! I'm fine. Can you like…leave maybe. Cause you see, I'm working and I forgot about something and I need to figure it out. Shoo! Out of here! Now!' Tony directed Steve towards the exit, as he raised himself from the floor. No matter how hard Tony was trying to conceal it, Steve couldn't help but notice, that Stark pushed his tablet in between the cushions on the sofa, so that anyone entering the room wouldn't be able to see the device. The moment that Steve was out of the room, Tony darkened all the windows and glass doors and secured all the entrances to the room. Despite himself Steve felt suspicious. What could Tony possibly be up to?

XXXXXXX

The surprises didn't end there. At dinner time Tony just barged into the living room with a few boxes of pizza and his tablet in hand.

'So, what are we watching? Action? Comedy? Drama?' he asked in a voice far too cheerful for a man who seemed to have experienced something akin to a mental breakdown only hours ago. He set the boxes down on the table and took his usual seat on the sofa, lodging himself between Bruce and the armrest. 'What?' he asked, as everyone in the room looked at him questioningly, waiting for an explanation of his erratic behaviour. 'Did somebody die or what?' he laughed at his own joke, only to be rewarded by a few accusing glances. 'Is it the pizza? I thought you liked it, but we can always just go for Chinese takeaway!' Still, nobody replied. Even Bruce tried to avoid his gaze. It was something very uncommon, after they started appreciating each other as friends, rather than just lab partners.

'Ok, fine. Whatever it is, I'll go and put on something more comfy than this, and you can pick the movie.' He left the room, leaving them all staring. Of course Steve told them about the weird 'conversation' they shared in Tony's workshop earlier. Of course, they were worried that he wouldn't tell them what happened. But now it was more than just worry. It was this weird, unfamiliar feeling in his gut, that something wasn't right and that there was more to Tony's refusal to explain himself than just his introvert personality.

'What _on Earth_ is wrong with him?' Steve asked, starting to get annoyed. He only just thought that he managed to somehow understand Stark and now he was acting so weirdly again! That was simply not fair. 'Is he dying again?'

'Just let him be. You know what he's like. Maybe he just couldn't work out an equation or something earlier and got all upset about it,' Bruce murmured, too focused on the nice smell of pizza to even look at Steve, after two long days of constant, uninterrupted research in his lab.

'How can we just let it be? What if he's hiding something important like…'

'Like what? _Oh I need to tell you something guys, I'm pregnant. _or _I know this will be difficult for you to swallow, but I decided to become a ballet dancer._' Clint spoke for the first time, mocking Steve's last remark and only aggravating his worry. 'Chillax and let's pick a movie Cap.' Clint put a reassuring hand on Steve's shoulder and walked towards the pile of DVDs lying in a neat pile next to the TV.

Steve remained unmoved and slightly hurt by the spy's comment. He didn't care about the film. He just wanted to know that they were alright as a team. He wanted to shift his position on the sofa, and in order to do that, he picked up Tony's abandoned tablet so that he could move it to the table.

'What the hell do you think you're doing with that Rogers? Didn't your parents teach you not to take other people's stuff?' Everyone's heads snapped towards Tony, surprised at his offensive tone.

'I'm sorry. I didn't…'

'You didn't what? Mean to? As you didn't mean to spy on me earlier?' At this point Bruce's mouth was wide open. He closed it, just so it could fall open again, when the Captain tried to grab Tony's arm and make him explain himself, causing the billionaire to stumble backwards, trip on his own shoelaces and land on the panelled floor with a loud thud.

'Tony, you know as well as we do, that this isn't normal! What's wrong? We can help, but you've gotta let us.' This time it was Natasha who realised that things might be far worse than Stark was actually making out to be, and if Stark was in some sort of trouble, all of the Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D. might have a problem as well.

''m just having a bad day. May I please have my tablet back, Steve? I need to go to bed,' Stark mumbled pushing himself up from the floor and outstretching his hand toward the device that Steve was holding.

'Well, this bad day has been going on for a while and a few minutes ago you wanted to watch a movie, not sleep. Do you want to tell us what _really_ is wrong?' Natasha knew that they had to push it to get the truth out of him.

'I'm sorry, but it's none of your business. And maybe I _do_ wish I could tell someone, but I simply can't.' With that, he turned on his heel and walked away. They stared at his back in silence until he disappeared from the room. Steve was even more confused than he was before, Natasha was strictly speaking annoyed, Bruce still couldn't ignore the smell of the pizza and Clint sincerely wished that he could just turn the whole situation into a joke. Four different people with four different perspectives. Perspectives that wouldn't be the same, had they know that as Tony was walking away under their scrutinising gaze, he was fighting hard to suppress tears that were threatening to roll down his cheeks.

**Sorry that it wasn't the most exciting of chapters, but I needed to get the story going somehow and this seemed appropriate. I hope it wasn't too bad. **

**PLEASE REVIEW, if you want to see more, because there is nothing that motivates me as much as your support :DDD**


	3. Chapter 3

**Thank you for the reviews which are really a HUGE motivation for me and for your continued readership.**

**I hope this chapter is not too bad. Feel free to shoot me or something if it is…**

None of the Avengers dared touch the pizza that Tony had left on the table. Even Bruce managed to chase away his appetite and join in the conversation with others. He knew that the food would taste wrong without Tony in the room.

'Maybe it's something to do with Pepper,' Clint suggested. Natasha shot him a reprimanding look in reply, knowing that Pepper had been putting up with Tony for years, so she was not very likely to give up on him now, no matter what he did.

'You never know Tasha, women are weird creatures, you can never really…Ouch!' Clint did not get the chance to finish the sentence, as Natasha decided to remind him, using her fist, that she wasn't just his fellow agent, but also one of the 'weird creatures' herself, thank you very much Clint.

Silence descended upon the room, and everybody was carried away by their own ideas and suspicions, some of them so ridiculous that they weren't even worth voicing. Steve distanced himself from the rest of the team, finding a quiet place in the corner of the room, that he wished to share with nobody, but his sketchbook. What could Stark possibly be hiding? And why did he start treating him this way again? Steve tried, really tried to put up with him, and they did manage to get along well and even genuinely enjoy each other's company. Now he was suddenly being treated like a mere laboratory experiment again…

'What if he's up to no good?' Steve didn't even realise that he said the words out loud. He didn't want to, but he couldn't think of any reason for Tony to behave so strangely. All the heads in the room turned towards him. Bruce had an accusing expression on his face. The fact that his science bro could be doing something unsavoury sounded like an insult, especially from the mouth of Steve Rogers.

'Up to no good? Like what, eating all the blueberries?' Bruce couldn't help himself, but retort at Cap sarcastically – he really was spending too much time with Tony. He knew he shouldn't get angry, especially not at his teammates but Steve had always been too hard on Tony and throwing around accusations was simply over the top.

The Captain was about to reply, when the speakers in the walls were suddenly turned on, and Fury's voice filled the room.

'I need you in the conference room. Immediately. And all of you.' As soon as the Director stopped talking, the speakers were turned off, and the Avengers were left to themselves, to guess what could possibly be so important that they were urgently needed at this time of the night.

They were about to leave the sofa, knowing well that it was best for all of them not to keep the Director waiting, when they realised that they should check up on whether Stark knew about the meeting. No one was in the mood to see him right now, but they weren't cruel enough to let him suffer the consequences of not turning up. Banner voluntarily took up the task, since he knew that if any convincing was needed, he would do it most effectively.

To his surprise the lab was empty. So was the entire floor of the Tower that belonged to Tony. He didn't even pick up his phone, which was always with him when Pepper was away on business and he was waiting for her call. Resignedly, the doctor dragged himself back to their living room, to join his teammates.

'I can't find him anywhere, let's go. Maybe we'll find something out when we see Fury,' Banner murmured. He was unhappy to see the look on Steve's face turn from tired to alert – he had to be turning the whole situation over in his head, interpreting Stark's disappearance as proof of his hypothesis, that the genius was deceiving them on purpose.

'Stop thinking about it cap,' Banner reassured him, gently resting his hand on Steve's shoulder. 'Tony is Tony, he does weird things every now and then. Maybe he is already downstairs.'

Steve just shrugged him off, feeling more lonely and betrayed than ever. He was the first one to leave the room, followed by the other Avengers. Neither one of them said it, but they were starting to believe that maybe there was a grain of truth in what the captain was suggesting.

XXXXXXX

Fury was sitting back in his black leather chair when they gathered around the table. At first, he either didn't notice that they entered, or more likely didn't think that it was important to acknowledge their presence anyhow. It had been a while since they saw the expression on his face so grim, and for the first time since Loki's invasion and the battle of New York, he looked genuinely concerned. This couldn't mean anything good.

What arose their suspicions even further, was the fact that one of the seats still remained empty. Tony has often skipped unimportant meetings, that was not a big deal. But the empty chair, almost gaping at them and laughing in their faces, made Fury's worry contagious and none of them saw fit to make the slightest noise or movement. Worst of all, the director didn't even ask why Stark wasn't present. Usually he would use every opportunity to tell him off and blunt his tempter a bit, but not today.

'What do you know about a company called OilCorp?' Fury finally spoke quietly, without raising his eyes to look at them. Everyone apart from Natasha looked at him expectantly, hoping that he would continue. The spy hesitantly spoke up, still not quite sure whether it was a rhetorical question or a genuine inquiry; no matter how long she worked with this man, she couldn't quite work him out.

'They used to be America's most prominent oil exporter, but their CEO got involved with the wrong people at the wrong time, it leaked into the press some years back and the firm went down. All they're good for now is doing underground business with some unsavoury characters and America's security agencies have them on the radar, don't they?'

The Director nodded in acknowledgment, still keeping his eyes on the floor.

'_We_'ve been keeping them on the radar to be more precise. They've been dealing under the table for the last couple of months, with some very dangerous individuals. And not just oil, but explosives and weapons as well. Apparently they have even been experimenting with chemical weapons, so you can see that this isn't very nice' Fury finally stood up and started pacing back and forth at the head of the table, still not really paying attention to the team. 'We have just received intel, telling us that an attack is going to take place in one of our major cities, co-organised by an unknown terrorist group in association with OilCorp.'

'Shouldn't the CIA or the FBI be taking care of this? I mean, aren't we supposed to…' Clint started talking, only to be faced with the rage of Nick Fury seconds later. The director leant on the armrests of the chair that Clint was sitting in and looked the archer in the eyes, pinning him to the chair, before he started speaking slowly, articulating every word carefully.

'Would you like to tell that to the families of the people who will die, unless we do something about it? Yes, maybe they should, but clearly they couldn't deal with it, so we're taking over the case. If you're at all uncomfortable with this, any of you, you can leave now.'

Nobody dared even blink, knowing that leaving was not _really_ an option.

'Do we know how much time we've got to work this out?' Natasha asked, her voice calm and professional as always.

'We don't know,' Fury murmured in reply. 'From the intel we received, I bet on three to five days. They will want to make a statement, to play with us, but they won't want to give us enough time to work this out properly.'

'What calibre of weapons are we talking about? Chemical? WMDs?' this time it was Banner who spoke and who was unsurprisingly interested in the technical side of the question.

'Quite possibly. And we're not talking about any sort of weapons that we're familiar with. We know that they have developed something completely new. They had to be working with some of the brightest people on this planet, we think they were…' Fury stopped talking suddenly and took a deep breath. He suddenly became even more uneasy and started playing with the handle of his gun.

'Surely, we're not that bad ourselves?' Steve reminded cheerfully. 'We've got doctor Banner and Stark…where on Earth is he by the way?' The super-soldier looked around the room, as if to seal the statement he made.

Fury didn't reply. He gripped the back of the chair that he was sitting in minutes ago and took a deep breath. Then he let go of the chair, probably putting too much force into it, paced around the room again and went back to maltreating the furniture.

'Not quite Captain. We don't have…ekhem, no more that is…' there was evidently something that Fury wanted to tell them, but that he couldn't quite force out of his mouth.

Everyone in the room stopped breathing for a moment. What happened? Not quite…no more…what could that possibly mean? The doctor was there, so…oh no, maybe something happened to Tony? They were all silently praying that he didn't do anything stupid. He evidently had reasons to be upset, but he was way too arrogant to do anything to himself, wasn't he?

Clint and Natasha looked at each other meaningfully, trying to reassure each other wordlessly that their friend was fine. Banner's skin was suddenly starting to look too green to be healthy and the Captain refused to look at anything else, but his newly bought sneakers. He couldn't believe that he actually agreed to buy them, they looked ridiculous, but since Tony was paying he really didn't want to get into a fight inside a shop full of people.

'What do you mean director?' Of course, it was the ever-brave Natasha who finally decided to break the awkward silence.

'We believe,' Fury cleared his throat before continuing, to the annoyance of all of the Avengers. 'We believe that Stark has been helping them,' he spat out finally. As soon as the words were spoken out loud, everyone heard a loud crack and their heads turned towards Banner. He had poured himself a cup of water, which was now laying in pieces on the table and the ground. Water was all over the doctor's trousers, and he was breathing heavily. They knew what was coming, Fury already had his hand on the trigger of his gun, Steve was half-way through raising up from the chair he was sitting in and they had all carefully analysed the best route of escape, should something unpleasant happen.

To everybody's surprise, the doctor did eventually manage to take a deep breath and search for a tissue in his shirt's pocked. On the contrary, Steve was up, pacing around the room and the moment Banner tried to speak, he landed a punch on a nearby wall, leaving a dent in the mix of metal and concrete. The doctor ignored him and carried on, however.

'You do realise that this is the most ridiculous idea of all director, don't you?' Banner murmured, looking the spymaster in the eyes, only to be backed up by a nodding Natasha. 'He might be a bit crazy, but he's not a…not a terrorist.' Even talking about such a possibility caused the doctor anguish. He had grown to like and respect Tony and he wouldn't accept those wild accusations, thrown at the only person who made the effort to truly understand and appreciate him. Not to mention the fact that he kept putting his life on the line for the sake of millions of unaware citizens.

Fury glared at doctor Banner, making sure not to appear too hostile and pushed a file across the table towards the scientist. He opened it and looked through the papers inside. Some of it was just bits and pieces taken out of Tony's personnel file, some of it was call registers and photos of Tony siting hunched over his tablet in the most unexpected places all over the Tower: in the basement, in the most hazardous part of their lab, even on the roof…

'Ok, so Tony has been acting weird, and there is clearly something that he doesn't want us to know about. That doesn't mean that he is planning to blow up a city,' the doctor retorted, making sure to keep control of the Hulk, but also trying to sound confident.

'Look at the register of his calls and emails,' the Director picked up a sheet from the table and offered it to Bruce. 'The number that he has been contacting most often is the personal mobile phone of the owner of OilCorp. The email address that he has been in touch with also belongs to him.'

'Oh great, so now you also saw fit to spy on us!' This time it was Steve who spoke. Natasha s,iled sympathetically; how naïve could a person get?

'SHIELD essentially is a spying agency Captain,' she said quietly, not wanting to enrage him further.

'Let's stick to the problem at hand Captain Rogers, shall we?' The Avengers were truly astonished at the way Fury spoke. He had never raised his voice before. Never.

'The problem? Yes, Stark is clearly a problem, but…'

'Stark is a problem? How do you even know _what_ they were talking about ? Have you read those emails Director Fury? Have you heard those conversations?' Bruce refused to step back.

'No, his firewall is too good to let us actually _read_ the emails. We only know what messages come in and out of the building. Same with the calls,' he murmured, knowing that the scientist had a point.

'Please doctor, leave it. Even if he isn't guilty, we must make sure that we have taken all possible precautions to avoid any possible consequences of a potential attack!' Steve was now standing behind Bruce, just in case the doctor needed to be restrained.

'Even if he isn't guilty? Doesn't that remind you of how one madman from Germany in the 1940s solved problems?' Bruce stool up himself, looking the Captain in the eye. He was shorter than the other man, but he would not be bossed around by him, Captain America or not. He was actually pleasantly surprised at how calm he managed to remain. He was having an actual argument, and the Hulk was still patiently waiting for his turn to have fun, it was truly amazing how much the Big Guy cared about Tony and managed to remain at bay, just to help him.

'Stop this,' Fury said quietly, but he had this peculiar quality of making people listen to him even without raising his voice. 'The Captain is right. I don't want to believe it myself, but we have evidence suggesting that Stark is neck-deep in some fishy business. It's better to talk to him about it now and…'

'_Talk to him_, I see. And where exactly is he now?' Natasha asked, fearing what the answer might be. In her lifelong career as a spy she's learnt that people in this business rarely ask questions nicely. As she suspected, Fury silently refused to answer that question, but everyone in the room realised what that meant. Tony was in trouble. A lot of trouble.

XXXXXXX

Tony expected the team to resent him for treating them this way. Tony expected Pepper to give him a lecture about trying to deal with everything on his own again. Tony expected himself to regret the decisions he had made. What he didn't expect, was that he would be woken up in the middle of the night by a squad of masked men with rifles pointing at his head, shouting for him to get out of bed and get down on his knees on the floor. It was like Afghanistan all over again. After a moment he realised that the assaulters were wearing SHIELD uniforms and his heart sunk. Afghani terrorists were known for kidnapping hostages; pointing a gun at the head of your allies was not something that Tony was overly familiar with. If they wanted the designs for the Arc reactor, like Obie did, they could just ask, so what was all this about? It didn't make sense, unless of course Capsicle felt offended by Tony's earlier behaviour and that was revenge.

But would Capsicle blindfold anyone, and lock them up in a cell, in a position that made his muscles and joints feel as if they were on fire? Tony doubted it. He didn't mind the cold and discomfort, but he needed to know what was going on. He had things to do, he didn't exactly have time for training exercises!

Suddenly the door burst open and he was brutally lifted back up onto his feet, and it took him a good while to regain balance. He felt himself being pushed into a hard chair, and as he leant forward he realised that there had to be a table standing right in front of him.

'Mr. Stark, I'd like to make this as easy for both of us as possible. You are a valuable asset after all.' Tony immediately recognised the voice of Nick Fury. It wasn't one that you could easily forget.

'Same here Nick. How about you start by taking this thing off, cause I kinda like being able to see the face of the person I'm talking to. Oh, and it would be nice if I could move my hands as well.' The blindfold remained tied over his eyes and his hands were still painfully bound behind his back, he was sure that the cuffs would leave bruises; and Fury made no attempt at replying.

'How about you start by telling me about your association with OilCorp Tony?' Fury said after a moment, his voice as levelled and steady as always, even though Tony would bet Dummy that he actually detected a touch of sadness in there.

_Oh shit. So they know. Not great. Repeat, not great. _

**Sorry about going into so much detail in this one, but this is just the result of what happens when I start typing. I wish I could re-write this chapter as two separate ones, but I feel that if I did that the story would lack continuity, so yeah…sorry. Not overly exciting, way too long and repetitive. Yay me! I just felt like I should probably update it sometime soon, and since I'll be leaving on holiday, I didn't want to leave too big a gap. Excuses made, but you can still shoot me, cause I'm not happy with it. Alternatively, you could make suggestions on how to make it better **

**If you liked (as unlikely as it is), let me know through REVIEWS and I'll continue writing ;) **


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